


Six Feet Under (Still Screaming)

by gunpowder_and_pearls



Series: whump but mostly just Jason Todd [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Wayne is Batman, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Buried Alive, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Flashbacks, Hurt Jason Todd, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd Gets A Hug, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, its okay he gets more hugs than usual, past major character death, ya'll this is just an excuse to hurt Jason im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 05:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30067674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunpowder_and_pearls/pseuds/gunpowder_and_pearls
Summary: Monday is the shittiest day of the week and Jason knows this.He knows that it’s the day when all the stupid and stuck up business men head back to work. It’s the day that the morning rush become more of a jam than anything else. It’s the day that his favorite show is on at an hour too late for him to watch.It’s also, apparently, the day that he gets tricked, subsequently drugged, and buried.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Coffins, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: whump but mostly just Jason Todd [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2174127
Comments: 12
Kudos: 230





	Six Feet Under (Still Screaming)

Jason doesn’t like Mondays. He doesn’t like the sudden rush of commuters that fill the streets every morning, noon and night. He doesn’t like the transition from empty coffee shops to crowded ones. 

Monday doesn’t seem to like him much either, not with the amount of speeding tickets he’s gotten at the beginning of the past two weeks. 

Mondays, apparently, also doesn’t like rapists.

Shouting is a common thing to hear in Crime Alley, although Jason knows that the crime rate drops every year, as more and more people follow his rules. The Bats could say whatever they wanted, the only reason that the Alley was so easy to control was because of Jason’s already existing reputation. 

Usually, Jason would approach slowly, following the sound of the fight, and only interfering if it was gangs he recognized or triggers were being pulled. But then a voice gets louder, fear and desperation lacing her words, and Jason takes off across the rooftops. 

The movement of running, of the leaps he takes between buildings, feels natural, and for just a moment, Jason feels like he could fly. 

_Robin is magic._ Yeah, keep wishing, kid. 

The other birds and bats had begun to slowly weasel their ways back into his life, bringing their criticism with them. Nevermind that he hadn’t killed people in over a _year_ , apparently Batman still needed to warn him to take ‘ _non-lethal shots only’_. 

Jason had actually ended up repairing his relationship with the Replacement first. With the pit rage gone, the blood that coated his hands, _Tim’s blood,_ made him want to throw up. He’d apologized, first over the phone and then in person. Eventually, he’d started showing up at Tim’s stakeouts, takeout in hand. Tim had begun to invite him instead of just allowing Jason to track him. 

After Tim, came Alfred, in the form of containers full of pre-made food sitting in his fridge, with no signs of how the butler had gotten in. Jason doesn’t think he’ll ever figure out how Alfred manages to get into his kitchens, without being caught on camera, every Saturday. 

Alfred had reminded Jason of his standing invite to crepes on Sundays and then changed it to scones on Saturday afternoons, letting Jason neatly avoid the rest of the Bats while still getting to discuss Shakespear with Alfred. 

Once it became known that Jason was willing to talk to them without firing a gun or, on one memorable occasion, blowing up the building from beneath them, the rest of the bird themed vigilantes began to flock to him. 

Unfortunately, their arrival did nothing to curb their needs to correct him on _everything_ he did wrong, in those first few months of him being allowed onto the main channel over comms. 

Luckily, Jason has managed to avoid them this Monday, and he finds himself moving faster than he would with a partner, having no need to map a route that allowed shorter legs to follow. 

He drops into the alleyway with a thud, a nightmare of bloodstained leather and kevlar, and doesn’t get the usual reaction of a mugger or rapist. They tend to bluster, to shout, as if they could take down Red Hood with only a knife and a hissed threat. Instead, the man in front of him takes off, already moving almost _before_ Jason hits the ground.

Jason watches the man’s rapidly receding figure for a moment, having half a mind to chase after him, if only as a warning, when a whimper sends his attention back to the woman in front of him. She’s still pressed with her back to the alleyway wall, trembling so hard that Jason can see her shaking. 

“Hey,” he says, voice soft in a way that he reserves for the people he saves. “Are ya gonna be okay?” He glances at her adrenaline blown eyes. “D’ya need me to call someone for you?”

She shakes her head silently, lips shaping words but no sound to accompany them. She takes a slight step towards him, and then takes another when he shows no sign of moving back. Jason extends his arms in a silent invitation, the movement too small to be noticeable to anyone _not_ looking for a hug. 

The woman rushes into his embrace, and he holds her gently as she wraps her arms around his neck. One of his favorite parts of being Robin, of being Red Hood, other than being able to take down the people who had terrorized Crime Alley while he was growing up, was getting to save those who could save themselves. Of getting to know that he was making a difference, no matter how small. 

And then the woman shifts in his grip, one hand lowering while the other was raised, moved to the side of his neck. Jason stiffens, instincts honed by years of vigilantism sending warning bells ringing through his head, and begins to pull away. 

_Too late._

There is a slight pin prick of pain, one that is almost ironic in the face of the _hurt_ that is sure to come, and Jason throws himself backwards, away from the needle, just after the plunger is pressed. 

“No,” he growls, the flash of fear in his gut twisting into anger that he coats his words with. “What the _fuck_ was that?”

The woman smiles as Jason sways, a sudden vertigo threatening to send him to the ground. “You little vigiliantes,” her expression turns as sharp as her words, a glint in her eye that hadn’t been there moments before. “Thinking you can play god, soldier and savior all at once, and have _no_ repercussions?”

Jason begs to differ. He _definitely_ experienced some repercussions for his night life. He opens his mouth to respond and blinks slowly. Opening his eyes is almost too hard a task to complete. He looks up at her - _when did he fall to his knees_ \- and summons the most vicious snarl that he can, forcing his way past the fast-moving drug haze that has begun to overtake his thoughts. 

“ _What_ , and you think that you can just kill one of us and _get away_ with it?”

She laughs. “No, I think that I can put _you_ back where you belong. And if you are missed along the way, then that doesn’t matter much to me.”

Jason blinks again, words crowding his mouth as he prepares to demand an explanation, a name, _anything_ to stall her long enough for him to move his now-clumsy hands to his panic button, and finds the alleyway floor rushing towards him. 

He leans to meet it and --

  
  


Jason wakes up in a coffin. 

_No._ God, _please,_ no. 

He presses his hands to the wood above him, the box dimly illuminated by a flashlight at his feet, and doesn’t feel a give. He presses harder, leaning into the motion, and the boards creak, dirt raining down from between them. 

_This can’t be happening again._

Jason can feel a bone deep fear growing, a reminder of a night he can _barely_ remember. Just _pain_ and _desperation_ and pure _terror._ He feels his shoulders begin to rise to his ears, and fumbles for his comm. His helmet is absent, from both his head and the box - _don’t think about it_ \- and he doesn’t want to think about how skilled that woman must have been to pull it off of him _and_ disable the bomb he keeps inside, set to detonate within thirty seconds after the helmet gets removed the wrong way. 

Tuning his comm to the main channel proves to be almost too hard for his trembling fingers, and in the seconds that it takes for him to connect the coil of fear in his chest grows, sending shudders down his spine. 

Static plays in his ear and Jason’s heart leaps to his throat at the silence that echoes across the channel. If there’s no one out patrolling tonight, if everyone is off planet or hurt or _too busy_ , Jason is going to be trapped, with _no one_ coming. 

“Hood to Bats,” he grits out, forcing the fear from his voice in an attempt to hold himself together. There’s no response, not even a click to signal that someone is listening. “Hood to Oracle,” he says, words now wavering as the silence in response to his words grows. “Hood to Batcave, to Agent A, to anyone who’s _fucking listening_.” Jason sucks in a shaking breath. “I need immediate back up.”

Dead air was the only thing that crackled over the line. 

“Hello? Anyone, someone, _please._ ” It felt as though Jason’s heart was going to beat out of his chest. “I need help - I - anyone - I can’t--” He chokes on his last exhale and is sent into a coughing attack, full of heaving breaths as he tries desperately to pull himself back together. 

If he doesn’t get a response, he is going to have to start digging. He hopes that the lack of a reply is more on account of no one being on patrol, rather than them not believing him. He’d only _just_ started to prove that they could trust him again, he couldn’t lose them now that he was so close. 

At least, if he is alone again, he has more than a belt buckle and desperation to help him get to fresh air. 

This time, he has knives. 

He’d rather drown in dirt trying to get out than suffocate and do nothing but wait. 

And then, as if one of the gods that Jason has never believed in is listening, a click sounds down the line. _“Hood?”_ Nightwing sounds out of breath, as if he’d been sprinting across rooftops when Jason’s call went out. _“Where are you?”_

Jason swallows, his dry mouth doing nothing to help his rough voice. Relief rushes through him at the familiar sound of Dick talking over the comms. “I-” He darts a glance at the boards above him. “I-I don’t _know._ ”

_“What do you mean, you don’t know? Can you see anything?”_

“I mean, _I don’t know._ ” Jason can hear the panic seeping back into his voice. He presses a hand to the wood - _satin_ \- around him, knuckles white with pressure - _nails clawing at fabric_ \- as he flattens his palm to the wall. “I can’t do this again,” he says, and his sentence ends in a sob. There’s a faint sound in his ear, signalling that someone else joined the line, but Jason ignores it as he struggles to get more words out. “Dick, I can’t fuckin’ _do this_ again.”

_“Statis report, Hood.”_ Bruce’s voice is nearly emotionless, only the speed of his words betraying him. 

Jason shudders as he takes in the coffin around him again. “B-Batman, fuck, _please_ .” Memories overlap the present, his view flickering between silky fabric and rough planks. “I’m trapped. I don’t know where I am and I’m _trapped_.”

_“Where are you trapped?”_ There’s an edge to Bruce’s voice, something other than the anger Jason usually hears.

“A coffin. I-I’m in a _coffin_.”

A sharp breath echoes over the comms, the biggest reaction that Bruce is likely to allow himself. Jason takes comfort in the sound, knowing that at least this go around, someone might make it in time. 

Nightwing takes over when it becomes clear that Bruce isn’t going to say anything - _or maybe has nothing to say. Maybe he doesn’t care at all_ \- and his voice is too calm to be anything but faked. _“Can you hear anything near you? Water, a road, maybe people?”_

Jason pauses and the comm in his ear goes silent as the other vigilantes wait. For a moment Jason is prepared to say ‘ _nothing’_ , to tell them that he has _nothing_ to help them save him. And then a rumble splits the air, a sound too familiar for Jason to not recognize. 

“I can hear a ship, a big one. And water, I can hear water.” He hesitates. “Does that - does that help?” The panic of being trapped in a box again, of being _six feet under_ _again_ , is muddling his thoughts, turning the maps of Gotham he has memorized into nothing but a racing heartbeat and white noise. He feels fifteen again, not knowing for sure if he would be rescued. If he would survive. 

_“Yeah, Little Wing. That helps.”_ Jason can hear the reassuring smile in Dick’s words, even through his tight voice. 

“Just hurry the fuck up.” He doesn’t want to spend any more time underground then he has to. He doesn’t want to spend a single extra second reliving something that plays in his nightmares. 

The line falls silent, leaving nothing but Jason’s ragged breaths playing in his ears. 

Seconds, maybe minutes, tick by in slow motion, and as Jason struggles to keep his eyes trained on the boards above him - _if he closes his eyes, that’s_ absolute _darkness, which is even worse than seeing the box around him_ \- he can feel the trembling in his hands beginning to spread. 

Jason sucks in a breath and feels it catch in the back of his throat as he inhales. His exhales stutters on its way out and then he’s gasping, each desperate breath too shallow to do more than make his lungs cry for more air. 

The knot in his stomach seems to have grown, rising to the back of his throat. Jason swallows hurriedly, still fighting a losing battle with the oxygen around him, as he tries to not throw up. Vomit would only make his situation worse. 

_He’s going to die in this coffin_. It’s almost ironic, his second chance ending just how it began. The panic in his veins is still thrumming, his heartbeat matching the tempo of his breaths, as Jason shudders. 

Jason isn’t ready to go yet - _he’s barely started to talk to Alfred again_ \- he still has so much to do, so many people to help - _Tim stopped flinching away from him last month_ \- he hasn’t gotten to say goodbye - _just like last time_ \- 

_He doesn’t want to die._

There’s a roaring in his ears, a wave of white noise that washes away anything resembling a plan, anything resembling more than the pure need to _get out_. 

His fingers fumble for the knives strapped to his sides and the weight of his blades is almost comforting in his hands. He can feel his chest rising and falling in a ragged beat, a poor mimicry of breathing, as his head spins. 

Jason takes a moment to tear off a strip of his shirt to wrap around his nose and mouth. His nightmares are filled with the memory of drowning - _choking_ \- as he clawed his way through six feet of mud and grass. 

_He doesn’t want to live through that again_. 

The angle of his first thrust is shitty at best, his cramped position and shaking body doing nothing to lend strength to his first attempt. Jason lifts his other arm, wedges his second knife into the gash the first one left, and leans as much weight as he can against it. 

Something cracks and Jason watches as dirt begins to trickle down from the boards above him. For a moment, he’s frozen, caught up in his bit of success, in the fact that he has a much better chance now than he did last time. 

And then he’s bursting in a frenzy of movement, slashing and tearing at the wood with his knives and then his hands when he loses his grip on one of his blades. More and more dirt rains down around him and Jason closes his eyes as he keeps digging. He can feel the tips of his gloves tearing, reinforced leather doing nothing against the jagged boards that he claws at.

He’s gasping behind his makeshift mask, spitting out clumps of dirt that make it past the cloth. He can feel his eyes stinging, but he isn’t sure if it’s from the tears cutting down his cheeks or the dust that has inevitably gotten past his eyelids. 

Somehow, as he digs and claws and cries and _screams_ , he makes it to the surface. His hand breaks through the last layer of dirt and he digs his fingers into the ground, more of an attempt to ground himself than to pull himself further out, his shredded fingertips affording little help. 

Jason keeps moving, keeps trying to pull himself up and out of his _grave_ , but the weight above him, the weight _around_ him, stops him from moving more than a few inches. He chokes on a sob, swallows the ragged exhale down, because if he’s trapped then tears aren’t going to help him. 

He doesn’t want to die crying, not when that’s what happened last time. 

And then fingers wrap wround his wrist. 

Jason feels himself getting hauled upwards, can feel that strain on his shoulder, can feel a scream pressing against his clenched teeth. But there is a band of warmth, a solid grip on his arm, that anchors him. 

He is set on his feet, solid ground beneath his boots, and Jason crumples to his knees. His breathing picks up, and from what feels like miles away, Jason can hear a voice - _voices_ \- around him. 

A hand reaches towards him and he scrambles away, every sense screaming _danger_ \- _pain_ \- _hide._ Jason can feel words tripping their way off of his tongue but can’t hear them over his own ragged gasps. He fumbles at his clothes, frantically brushing grass and mud from his clothes and his skin. He needs the dirt _off,_ needs the memories _gone_ , and they _aren’t_ _going away._

Another set of hands joins Jason’s, only pausing at his flinch for a moment before continuing to help him. Jason’s desperate movements slow and he can feel his trembling ease as dirt is moved to show kevlar and cargo pants. 

Jason shudders and buries his hands in his hair, pressing his knees to his chest and his forehead to his knees. Someone rests their hand on his back, gently rubbing circles as he shakes. There are muted murmurs above him, voices and words that Jason knows he should recognize, but he can’t find the energy to do more than lean into the warmth beside him. Someone runs their fingers through his hair, mindless of the mud undoubtably caking it. It feels too nice for Jason to move away. 

“It’s okay,” a voice says, too loud to be coming from anywhere but right beside Jason. Jason turns his head, moving slowly enough that the fingernails gently scratching at his scalp don’t pause in their movement. Green eyes meet blue and Bruce smiles down at Jason. His voice is as soothing as it was when Jason was fourteen and sick with the flu. “I got you chum. You’re okay.”

Jason presses his head against Bruce’s hand, leans into Dick’s hand that is still rubbing circles on his back, and lets his eyes slide closed. _They came._

* * *

Jason rises to the surface of wakefullness at one point, too groggy to do more than take in the warmth around him and the light above him. There was a solid weight against him, a head on his stomach and a body pressed against his side. One of his hands is dangling off the side of his bed and he can feel the calloused hand holding it in a loose grip. 

He rolls his head to the side and meeting the tired eyes of Bruce, blinks. Something shifts against him and Jason glances down to watch Tim wind an arm around his waist, fast asleep even as he scooches even closer to Jason. The head on his stomach moves, Dick burying his head further into the warmth that was Jason and Tim combined. 

Jason looks back at Bruce who only smiles and nods his head. “Go back to sleep, Jay.” 

Surrounded and safe, Jason can’t do anything but close his eyes and dream. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are instant serotonin!
> 
> lmk what y'all thought


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